Annie Heaton is CEO of ResponsibleSteel, a global organisation offering a sustainability system of standards and certification for the steel industry. In September 2024, Big River Steel of the United States Steel Corporation became the first site to be awarded the ResponsibleSteel Certified Steel certificate.
PW: Ms. Heaton, you have a degree in politics, philosophy and economics. What attracted you to the world of steel?
Annie Heaton: I was in the steel industry for nine years before I joined ResponsibleSteel. Before that I was in the wind industry for eight years. Sustainability has always been my top priority, no matter what industry I worked in. This is reflected in my degree – the link between policy and business. It’s essential in today’s world, to connect economy and sustainable development to each other.
PW: How do you apply this enthusiasm for sustainability at ResponsibleSteel?
Heaton: Nowhere could I have done this better than in an area that is making the transition to near zero. The pricing of carbon is critical to what I have just described. And since carbon prices don’t exist everywhere, you need some form of border adjustments between the markets. We need to build an industry where buying high-emission steel is more expensive than low-emission steel. This is of course an economic issue, but also a policy one, because policy is there to make the impossible possible, and at the moment, low-carbon steel is not economically possible without any support.
PW: ResponsibleSteel is supporting policy through its global steel standard. Can you tell us something about it?
Heaton: Our standard covers the full range of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations, from pollution and health to climate action, responsible production and sourcing, and partnership aspects. We have ONE international production standard, which comprises thirteen principles.
PW: You recently certified Big River Steel at the product level so that they can market and sell Certified Steel.
Heaton: What Big River Steel has achieved is a world first. It is the first time that steel is available on the market that has been certified as being produced i n line with a comparable global benchmark for responsible steel production. The really important aspect of this is that there is now a market for Certified Steel, meaning steel that has made comparable progress towards responsible, near-zero steel.
PW: Responsible in this case does not just mean in terms of CO2 emissions?
Heaton: Our standard covers the full breadth of social and environmental issues. Big River has not only been certified for all of our core requirements (the basic level of certification), but they have also achieved the next level by demonstrating progress on two fronts: Decarbonization and Responsible sourcing. This enables them to market their steel as Certified Steel. They have made a first step towards net zero steel, and they are now tracking their supply chain in relation to the same aspects for which they themselves have been certified.
PW: Can you tell us more about Progress Level 1 for decarbonisation?
Heaton: We’re not talking about near-zero steel just yet. Our Decarbonisation Progress Level 1 takes the average of the industry’s embodied carbon emissions as a starting point and says: You have to be better than the average. To get back to 1.5 °C, we need to get the entire industry below that level at the minimum by 2030 and many to be far beyond that. Big River Steel is the first site in the world to put our fight against carbon emissions in the steel industry on a global map against this global benchmarking me-chanism. In doing so, they are telling the whole world: these are our embodied carbon emissions. 1.3 tonnes of CO2 per ton of steel, with 57.3% of the input being scrap. With this scrap rate, the company is below the average global emissions. And they have used the methodology that ResponsibleSteel has developed over three years with nume-rous stakeholders. We have seen a very similar approach emulated in many other standards and frameworks that have followed since.
PW: Do you think that there will be competition between national and international standards?
Heaton: If you look at other voluntary standards you will see that there is always at least some competition. Usually, you end up with one maybe two global systems. For fairtrade food you have Rainforest Alliance or Fairtrade International for example. Fair trade is not regulated – it is a voluntary scheme. But in the steel industry, we will need regulation to drive decarbonisation because it is so uneconomical at present. We need governments to decide where to channel incentives and customers to understand, who is producing steel responsibly? Companies will follow a standard if they get value out of it, which will come via credibility with their customers in trade and offtake agreements.
PW: Part of your task is to find a common basis for communication.
Heaton: If we have an international standard, then we have an international language. I see it as a currency. A steel ma-nufacturer in one country who wants to trade with a customer in another country can make a claim for green steel. If the customer does not know to which standard it is certified, he cannot trust the steel manufacturer. You really need an international standard, especially for steel.
PW: How would you define ResponsibleSteel’s mission?
Heaton: Our aim is to drive the production of environmentally and socially responsible near-zero steel. How do we do that? We develop standards. On the basis of a broad consensus of the various interest groups. And we provide a forum for all stakeholders to discuss difficult issues. We know that the transition to responsible steel will bring enormous social changes. What is the relevant standard to ensure best practice here?
